Inquiry Project

When I first learned that we would be doing an inquiry project, I was a little nervous. As I mentioned before, I am not the smartest cookie when it comes to technology. However, I caught on rather quickly and surprised myself with how much I was able to do on my own! The way that this assignment was presented to us was very clear and understandable. I definitely will use the skills that I have learned in my own classroom. Inquiry based projects are so fun for students, especially elementary students. As a teacher you are allowing them to explore on their own to find answers to the questions that you have presented them with. As students they feel a sense of freedom and they feel pride in themselves because they were able to work on the Internet and find those answers. I look forward to making many more worksheets from online sites. I really enjoyed this project, and cannot wait to use it in my future classroom one day!

Website Evaluation

Completing this website evaluation taught me a lot! You have to be very specific when choosing a website that you would want your students to use. This activity broke down the small details that I more than likely would have over looked. When evaluating the particular site that I used, ABCYa, I went through each category on our worksheet and then did a little exploring on the site itself. My site was all about games, so I had fun evaluating this site! You have to be sure that your students will be able to access websites that you would like them to use whether it be in the classroom or in their homes. It is also important that the site doesn't have any hiccups or technical problems. As a teacher you also want to make sure that your students will benefit from whatever site you may be evaluating. When I have my own classroom in the future I will definitely use some sort of "website evaluation assessment guide" such as the one that we were provided with. It was very helpful in the sense that it laid out small details to me that are so important when you have your students use websites. By the end of the evaluation, I had enough knowledge about the site to determine if I would actually want to use it in my classroom. My answer was yes to ABCYa! It met the majority of criteria on the assessment and I came to the conclusion that I would love to use this site in my classroom, and that I would recommend it to other teachers and parents as well.

Wikis

I don't have much experience with creating my own wiki pages in the past, but I

do however have experience with using Wikipedia. Throughout high school I can remember my teachers telling me that we could use Wikipedia while working on projects, but to not use the site as a works cited source in a research paper. They explained that anyone in the wiki community, if approved, can go in and edit a site. Kind of crazy, right? I never really fully understood what this meant until now.

Through creating my "all about me" wiki page I feel so much more confident about working with technology! I now understand why my teachers never encouraged us to use Wikipedia while writing papers. It is so simple to join the wiki community and to edit pages. At first I was a little confused as to how this particular project would benefit me in the classroom, especially in an elementary level classroom. I soon realized however, how helpful wikis will be for me in my classroom; and how beneficial they will be for my students. I am not the best with technology, so for me to be able to learn how to create a wiki page on my own was a huge accomplishment for me! Children today are so technologically savvy, so incorporating wikis into the classroom should be simple.

Since I will be working with younger elementary level students I want to stick with more simple wiki sites and projects. One idea that I have is to create a multi-author story page. I would start a story and then each student would build off of that. We would end up with a unique story that everyone in the class contributed to. Another way that I plan to use wikis in my classroom is by creating a classroom scrapbook. Each student would create their own "about me" page complete with a picture and fun facts about themselves. I will also make scrapbook pages of the classroom field trips, class parties, class programs, and each students' growth throughout the school year. Lastly, I want to use wikis to keep up with students' progress on group projects. When using a wiki page, I will be able to see how much each student contributed. That will help me a lot to determine which group members are doing what and making sure that everyone is contributing equally. I cannot wait to use wikis in my classroom and I feel that my students will definitely benefit from using this source of technology!

Introduction and Expectations

Hi! My name is Kelly Fellman and I am from Old Hickory, TN. I am currently a senior at the University of Tennessee. I am majoring in Psychology with a minor in Elementary Education. I plan to become an elementary school teacher after I graduate. In my free time I love to be around my friends and family. I also enjoy cooking and crafting!

Technology is not my strong suit, so I was very wary coming into this course. Surprisingly, I have been able to achieve each assignment thus far on my own! One expectation that I have for this course is that I will leave with a better understanding of how to use technology in the classroom, more specially in an elementary level classroom. I also want to learn how to use technology to communicate with parents of my students. I think that it is vital to build relationships with them, and I want to be able to share with them what their children have been working on in my classroom.

I look forward to this semester and I am so excited to learn even more about technology. It's hard for me to believe that in just a few short years I will have to put these skills to the test in my own classroom, but I am ready for it! I have an open mind and I am ready to soak up all that TPTE 486 has to offer!